STAGE 1 – the energy-finance flywheel 🚀
1️⃣ 30-yr, 1-trillion m³ take-or-pay → Gazprom locks in a 30-year pay-cheque in yuan. Each locked yuan payment is one less invoice the world needs dollars to settle.
2️⃣ Chinese banks slice the cash-flow → sell bonds today backed by tomorrow’s gas. Every bond sold in yuan pulls investors away from USD-denominated energy debt.
3️⃣ Yuan flows back → buys rigs, rails, ships no SWIFT, no dollars. Equipment priced in yuan means suppliers start quoting parts in CNY, chipping away at dollar invoicing.
4️⃣ Loop repeats → gas pays off old bonds and backs new ones, forever. The endless yuan recycle trains markets to price future energy projects in CNY, not USD.
Result: the first pipeline that prints its own credit, pushing north-south trade without a single greenback.
STAGE 2 – the war-fed printing press 💣
🔥 40 % of Russia’s GDP now goes to tanks and shells.
War-spending keeps Russian gas flowing east, ensuring yuan contracts stay large enough to benchmark against.
🔥 Extra bcm = more yuan bonds = cash for missiles long before the gas arrives.
More bonds deepen yuan liquidity, making CNY the easier currency to trade Russian molecules in.
🔥 India pays yuan for oil; China pays yuan for gas Russia earns, spends and saves in CNY.
When the third-biggest importer settles in yuan, other sellers accept CNY to keep customers, slicing another chunk off dollar demand.
🔥 Yuan is now energy-money embargoes can’t touch it.
A sanction-proof currency option entices more exporters to quote cargoes in yuan, eroding the dollar’s market share.
STAGE 3 – the post-dollar chessboard ♟️
✅ Asia locks in cheap pipe gas.
Cheaper yuan-denominated contracts set a new reference price, pulling neighbouring deals into CNY.
✅ Dollar loses pricing monopoly in 30 % of global gas trade.
Russia-China flows = 10 % of world market, all in yuan; add India/Iran/Qatar and non-USD hits 28-32 % by 2026.
Each non-dollar deal shrinks the pool of cargoes needing USD hedging, so traders quote futures in yuan and central banks trim USD reserves.
✅ Template exported: Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Arctic LNG copy the same trick gas today, yuan loan tomorrow.
More pipelines → more yuan bonds → deeper CNY markets → a self-growing energy bloc that skips Western banks.
Every project removes another sliver of global gas volume from dollar price discovery, marching toward the 30 % tipping point.
